That’s leftists. Not Democrats. Anyone to the left of Democratic socialist. So not Bernie Sanders either.
Is this definition of “leftists” widely accepted? I always thought that word was just another word for liberal or anyone who isn’t right wing these days.
No, in uneducated American circles you would be correct but in actual political discourse a leftist is truly a leftist. A liberal is an American “leftist”.
No. Leftist means anti-capitalist.
No liberals are not leftist.
Sometimes you have to fucking do something. We can’t make big changes overnight. Start small. Organize soup kitchens in your community. Or a community garden. Or start holding party meetings and recruiting people to the cause. And stop making excuses for “leftist” murderers just because they’re “leftist”.
The leftists have become a corpo/billionaires shills since occupy wall street happened.
Since 2012 the left ceased to exist in the mainstream. Class issues that the left raised before the takeover ware replaced by identity politics. Labels were introduced and Massed Formation Psychosis was initiated. All dissidents of even a slightly different opinion were attacked/cancelled en masse. Freedom of speech, religion, was now seen as archaic, nuclear families were seen as dangerous, racism and segregation were accepted ect.
Psychosis reached it’s peak in 2020 when people had more time to reflect on their views in their time of isolation from coronavirus and subsequently more and more people were coming to their senses.
The scales are starting to swing back but in my opinion due to the sheer momentum of people waking up this will have catastrophic consequences for the western civilization.
Currently still there are no sensible/uncompromised leftist movements left and the only alternatives are on the right. And, like I said above, this will have catastrophic consequences.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, and demanding a politico-savior will leave you wanting forever. Keeping your hands clean betrays your selfishness, not your commitment.
Violent revolution that results in a population moving left is so absurdly unlikely as to be dismissed, and any planning that depends on it mere daydream to salve frustration.
The liberal and the centrist who together elected a moderate in the face of a reactionary have done more to save you than all of your theory has done to save them.
And I wish none of that were true.
Right, and who do you think gave you the 8-hour work week? Yep leftists.
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I’ll quote Steely Dan here: “Unhand that gun, begone. There’s no one to fire upon.”
As infuriating and frustrating it is to live in a world plagued with systemic issues, it’s important to recognize that many of the world’s problems can’t be traced back to a single person, government, organization, or ideology. Some things are just nobody’s fault, and can’t be solved be a mere change of leadership.
Every society in the world today, no matter how it is structured or who it is lead by, will be subject to a list of inevitable problems. Scarcity. Bigotry. Violence. Crime. Incompetence. Selfishness. The uncomfortable fact is that nobody knows how to structure a society such so that all citizens meet their basic needs in exchange for an amount of work that they find tolerable.
This is true of the United States, of Europe, of the Soviet Union, of China under the CCP, and of every other country to ever exist. Some countries are, of course, worse than others. But in many countries you find that people and politicians try in earnest to improve society and simply fall short, sometimes because they misidentify the core issues, and other times because they don’t have good enough ideas for solving them.
I encourage everyone to look at politics as groups of impassioned people with strong opinions about how their lives might be improved. At the end of the day, those of us with kind hearts are trying our best to defeat a common enemy, and merely differ in approach. I think a lot of people would do good to realize that.
As much as we get along on conversation and political theory, I actually hate your ideology. We get along because we agree that a strong government is needed. We disagree because I need it to protect my freedoms, you need it to control the economy.
- A Left Libertarian
I’d be interested to hear where communism, socialism, or any far left government has ever worked in the real world.
Because there are plenty of examples of it being a nightmare.
If “Freedomville” forces “Commies R US” to close its ports, thereby severely limiting access to trade and goods, is it the fault of Commies R US?
What about if Freedomville goes and funds, trains militias inside Commies R US, which then declare war against Commies R US?
If Commies R US voted for, and elected a commie, why are they not allowed to do so?
Guess it was Freedomville that caused Soviet Russia and China to be so oppressive, right?
Socialism is an economic framework more than anything else. It’s obvious that these countries had issues, but saying they were all caused by the way they distribute money is a bit of a stretch.
These countries took bits and pieces of leftwing policies, and then added their own rubbish on top. They don’t really represent the modern left, just as the US pre-Civil Rights doesn’t represent the ideals of most in the US now. Oppressive social policies exist or have existed under every flavor of government. It’s certainly not limited to, or an integral of the left.
Authoritarianism is not Socialism.
So where has the left functioned successfully in the real world?
Many countries have implemented left wing policies with success.
The government of Norway owns a large percent of its resource extraction and oil industry. The revenues are used to provide social services such as free healthcare and education to its citizens.
You obviously won’t find Norway on this list, but feel free to scroll through and see if you can find a pattern.
Look up indigenous socialism. Those tend to work. They tend to get crushed by larger powers but they work internally. Unless of course you mean by work you mean be the mightiest. Yeah no.
There’s also things like the Paris commune.
